I’m from the Internet and I’m here to help you

If you’d like to get a flavor for the sort of impact that one (tenacious) citizen can have on making government data more transparent, check out this Google Tech Talk by one of my personal heroes, Carl Malamud. (I write about his exploits in my new paper on online transparency.) He talks about cajoling the ITU to put standards online, forcing the SEC to put its public information online, and his new project to live-stream and archive video of all congressional and agency hearings in Washington. He’s a real inspiration.

Jerry Brito / Jerry is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and director of its Technology Policy Program. He also serves as adjunct professor of law at GMU. His web site is jerrybrito.com.